I disagree with the entire system: government schools, institutionalized education, large classrooms, disaffected teachers. The more I hear from parents of “successful” government school students, the more I realize they’re basically homeschooling, just in the evenings. That’s what homework is, for involved families. For uninvolved ones it’s just another way to fail.
I never went to public/government schools and two of the schools I went to did not follow traditional classroom/scheduling models. With the exception of “lecture labs,” which were to get students comfortable with large lecture sections we would encounter in college, I rarely was in a room with more than 24 other students and I had classes with less than ten students.
I do think with quality teachers, you can impart information efficiently and have students prepare or follow up by working on their own. Someone mentioned study halls in an earlier post. I always had some time during the day to work on homework which minimized what I took home. I think the problem might be eliminated school time for independent work, not necessarily too much homework.
HA! I like that :) homework = home schooling, I never thought of it that way. But it so true.